Today's Liberal News

The End to the Government Shutdown

Editor’s Note: Washington Week With The Atlantic is a partnership between NewsHour Productions, WETA, and The Atlantic airing every Friday on PBS stations nationwide. Check your local listings, watch full episodes here, or listen to the weekly podcast here.
This week the government reopened after the longest closure in the nation’s history.

How Mamdani Won: Field Director Tascha Van Auken on Grassroots Organizing Behind Historic Victory

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is less than two months away from taking office in New York City. Mamdani’s history-making campaign, grounded in community organizing, propelled the little-known Assembly-member to victory. Candidate Mamdani famously began the campaign polling at just 1% and overcame the intense scrutiny, Islamaphobic attacks, criticism for his support for Palestinian rights, and more.

“The Trillion Dollar War Machine”: William Hartung on How U.S. Military Spending Fuels Wars

Democracy Now! speaks to William Hartung about his new book “The Trillion Dollar War Machine” and who profits from the United States’ runaway military spending that fuels foreign wars. Hartung says that U.S. policy is “based on profit” and calls for a rethinking of our foreign entanglements. “We haven’t won a war in this century. We’ve caused immense harm. We’ve spent $8 trillion,” he says.

“Gunboat Diplomacy”: U.S. War in Latin America Feared as Hegseth Launches “Operation Southern Spear”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced the launch of Operation Southern Spear to target suspected drug traffickers in South America, Central America and the Caribbean. The U.S. now has 15,000 military personnel in the region. Over the past two months the U.S. has blown up at least 20 boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. “80 people have been killed in what are extrajudicial executions under international law,” says Juan Pappier, Americas deputy director at Human Rights Watch.

SNL Has Its Black Mirror Moment

Last night’s Saturday Night Live addressed the growing frustration with a technology that’s seemingly found its way into every American industry, even dishwashers. One of the first sketches of the night had Ashley Padilla as an elderly woman whose grandchildren went to visit her in a retirement center. As a surprise, her grandson (Marcello Hernández) had downloaded a program that used artificial intelligence to animate old photography, and had uploaded some of her treasured childhood photos.

Abecedarian With Sensodyne

A hard smart under hot wash of coffee.
Beneath the pulped swell of winter
citrus or a sharp draw of winter air. Not
delicately, Dr. Wayne tested each molar
etched through. In sleep I will
fit one to another and scrape. What
gnaws at me: my own mouth, now
hindered and harbored by this night guard.
In the day, set aside, its plastic holds a phantom
jaw. Dr. Wayne advised softer bristles,
kinder hand. Even in care, I have
long justified roughness.

Tell Students the Truth About American History

“Raise your hand if you’ve heard of Thomas Jefferson,” I said to a group of about 70 middle schoolers in Memphis. Hands shot up across the auditorium. “What do we know about him?” I asked.
“He was the president!” one said.
“He had funny hair!” said another.
“He wrote the Constitution?” one remarked, half-asking, half-asserting.
I responded to each of their comments:
“Yes, he was our country’s third president.”
“That’s actually how many men wore their hair back then. Many men even wore wigs.

Pennies Are Trash Now

What, exactly, is the plan for all the pennies?
Many Americans—and many people who, though not American, enjoy watching from a safe distance as predictable fiascoes unfold in this theoretical superpower from week to week—find themselves now pondering one question.